The Original Assassin – Hitman: Absolution Review

It seems that Assassins are popular this year, between Corvo from Dishonored and Connor from Assassins Creed 3, stealth games have made a strong comeback this year. There is one problem though, they don’t feel like they give you any freedom to handle the situation the way you want to. This is not a new concept to follow, it’s been available through he Hitman series, where it was possible to only the target and no one else through various means. Guns, poison, chokes, explosions, you have an open world full of possibilities.

Lucky for us, Agent 47 is back in Hitman: Absolution, bringing back his expertise on the art of the kill.

Set after the events of Blood Money, Absolution’s story starts with a hit that is close to home for 47. His Handler Diana had betrayed the Agency and the new head requests 47 to take the hit, this causes a moral dilemma as Diana reveals the reason why she left, a young girl; a new test subject for the Agency. 47 takes the girl into his own protective custody, effectively betraying the Agency.

There are clear motives in this game compared to just taking out your targets. 47’s story this time around is much more personal, which brings things together so much better compared to previous titles. The story is nothing to throw an award at though, and it has the pacing and feel of a Hollywood movie, which is fine considering how it can keep you entertained but you can’t shake the feeling like you’ve heard this kind of story before.

There are pretty much 2 ways of playing Hitman Absolution, kill everyone in your way or don’t. Where assassination games like Dishonored rewards you for taking the bad path with awesome quick kill scenes, Absolution rewards you when you cause “accidental deaths.” Each level has many different ways of dispatching your target that you’ll need to take multiple play-throughs to find them all. A perfect example being the “King of Chinatown” level where there are 13 different ways aside from the direct approach to kill your one target.

When things go south though, you can always use your weapons. 47 has an arsenal ready for him, from his trusty guns to random objects, there is nothing that he can’t use as weapon. Hitman Absolution has one of the best aiming features I’ve seen in a stealth game, allowing you to hold your breath for better aim with all weapons (not just sniper rifles), and some of the best sniping I’ve seen in a video game (that wasn’t a full simulation.)

Of course, the game is all about being discrete. Being seen, killing non-target opponents, or having them find bodies lowers your overall score. This stops you from getting needed upgrades that will help you in later levels. It’s not an easy task to beat the level with only killing your target(s) but some of 47 new abilities can help, with the use of intuition; 47 can see through walls and soldiers patterns as well as hide in costume.

Of course the game isn’t without it’s problems, the story can get confusing at times and some of the side characters feel like they come from a bad cartoon or comic books, while this is not always a bad thing as 47 would fit well in a magazine like Heavy Metal, it doesn’t feel right with the realistic approach to the story and graphics.

The A.I. in Hitman isn’t anything amazing either. Just like most stealth games, the key to successfully track and eliminate targets without any error is to wait  and see their pattern. At some point and time, the character will start repeating his animations and his move. Also like other stealth games (we’ll say Metal Gear Solid for example) the A.I. will usually stop searching for you after a short amount of time.

Despite the dumb A.I. The game is still quite difficult, even on easier difficulties the game find ways to kill you quickly. Higher difficulties make the A.I. more responsive and easier to tip off, getting rid of your Intuition or your heads up display as well. While this seems desirable for those who want a realistic feel to the game, I’d only recommend playing at these difficulties after a couple of plays as it really makes the game more tedious then fun.

It’s great to see 47 return to glory, fans would enjoy the new Hitman and it feels like newbies coming into the series will be able to pick up the game fairly easily.